LastPass Password Manager (for Android)

With the LastPass Android app, you can access all of your complex, unique passwords wherever you are and easily hand them over to someone else should you become incapacitated.

By Max Eddy

25 Jan 2016, 4:33 p.m.

It's nearly impossible to keep track of all the logins and passwords you need for every app and website, which is why you should be using a password manager like LastPass—even on your mobile device. This excellent Android app lets you easily access your personal information and passwords wherever you are. You can also use it to create new entries, share passwords securely, and even bequeath your passwords to someone else. It's a great value, and an easy PCMag Editors' Choice.

Pricing, Setup, and SecuritySetting up a new LastPass account from an Android device is remarkably simple. Just download the free app from the Google Play store, enter an email address, and create a unique master password that will be used to secure all your other passwords. This, in theory, is the only password you need to memorize once you start using LastPass, so make it a good one. I had no trouble starting from scratch on my Nexus 5 or logging into an existing account on my Nexus 6.

When you create a LastPass account on a smartphone, you can sync those passwords among any smartphones you own, for free. If you want to use a computer or a tablet in addition to your Android, you'll have to pay $12 a year for LastPass Premium. There are few other perks to a Premium account, but that's the most important one for Android users. Creating a new account with Dashlane is a bit more tedious, but the app starts out by importing all your passwords from other machines. It takes a bit of work, but Dashlane lets you really hit the ground running.

LastPass also supports a variety of two-factor authentication options, such as Duo Mobile and Google Authenticator. The app can also be unlocked with a fingerprint reader, should your Android device include one. For more on the advanced features, be sure to read our full LastPass review.

In the last few years, we've seen LastPass weather some security storms. One came from a problem with the Windows desktop app which left information exposed in memory. A more recent incident was far more serious: Hackers were able to extract encrypted data from LastPass's servers, but weren't able to decrypt it. (LastPass uses AES-256 encryption.) In both cases, I was impressed with how quickly and honestly LastPass dealt with the crises. No service is completely bulletproof, so I think it's important to judge companies by how they respond to attacks and breaches.

Using LastPassAlong with the Web version of LastPass, the Android app has been updated with new features and a more refined interface. The app now moves much more smoothly than before, and features big, colorful icons that make it easier to differentiate between entries. It's a welcome design refresh that looks thoroughly Android.

But the Android version gets several features not afforded to iPhones (though an update for iPhone users is coming very soon). For example, LastPass on Android has long supported copy notifications—shortcuts in your notifications list that copy the username and password with a tap. The current version of LastPass goes even further, displaying a pop-up window in Chrome, which matches the website you are visiting to an existing LastPass entry or letting you search for a different entry. LastPass also supports InBrowser, Opera, Javelin, and Javin; and has limited support for Boat, Yandex, HTC Sense, Dolphin, Silk, and Ghostery Private Browser. Plug-ins are available for Firefox Mobile. Dashlane doesn't include this feature, although both it, and LastPass, can fill your login information into apps—a handy trick for Android users.

The autofill window works well in my experience, though I sometimes get annoyed at having the pop-up in my face. That's fine: you can suppress the autofill window on specific apps or turn it off entirely. You can also search your LastPass archive for entries you've already saved and launch them like bookmarks using the browser included within LastPass.

LastPass form-filling profiles automatically fill the blanks in online forms with personal information such as name, address, bank account, credit card number, and so on. They're great for creating new accounts or making purchases. As of this writing, filling forms only works within the built-in LastPass browser. That's disappointing, but it's still more convenient than filling in the information by hand. I really like that if you fill in a form with new information while using the LastPass browser, LastPass offers to save it as a new entry. Even when you use the app to generate a new password.

If you're using a form-fill profile to create a new account, you'll probably need a strong password to go with it. Never fear, as LastPass includes its excellent password generator in the Android app. With just a new tap, you're given a unique, complex password. Of course, you should have the longest and most-complex password the site or app will allow, so LastPass has options for password length, pronounceability, use of capital and lowercase letters, how many numbers to add, whether or not to include special characters, and whether to avoid ambiguous characters like O and 0.

I really like how LastPass handles creating new entries and saving generated passwords. Just tap the Plus button in the lower right to create an entry for a website, a Secure Note, or a new Form Fill Profile. You then fill in the information, generate a new password, and save. I particularly like that LastPass automatically suggests URLs as you create your entries, so your Twitter password is linked immediately to Twitter. Alternatively, you can just generate a new password from the hidden left tray and save it as a new entry or overwrite an existing one.

One of the most-powerful features in LastPass is sharing, and the same is true for the Android app. Generally, sharing passwords is a really bad idea, but you may share a bank account with a partner or a Twitter account with a work colleague. LastPass lets you share individual passwords, or whole folders of passwords, with other LastPass users. Brilliantly, LastPass can share the entry without revealing the password. This lets you share access but keep the actual password obscured. While you can share individual passwords from the Android App, you can only modify the permissions of your shared folder from the app. To create that shared folder, you need to use LastPass' website.

Dashlane has long included a digital legacy tool to pass on your passwords to a trusted individual or individuals should you become incapacitated or die. LastPass has followed suit with a tool called Emergency Access. Like Dashlane, LastPass lets you select how long the person has to wait before he or she can access your information. It's a neat little fail-safe that ensures your heir can't grab access to your passwords before you've passed on.

An Essential ToolThough they are irritatingly ubiquitous, passwords matter a lot. One weak, recycled password can lead to a domino effect in which an attacker gains control of every service that uses the same password. If that includes your email, you're in real trouble because now the attacker can use the "forgot my password" link on websites to start changing passwords and locking you out. That's why it's critically important that you have unique passwords for each and every site and app you use, so please, for security's sake, get a password manager.

And when it comes to password managers, LastPass is hard to beat. It offers excellent tools, including ones specially made for mobile users. Its Premium tier is affordable, and its free service extremely generous. Features like password sharing and digital legacy mean that you can finally share passwords in a smart and secure way. That's why LastPass continues to be our top pick for Android password manager.

Pros

Lots of options for password generation.
Fills credentials on the Web and in apps.
Form fill profiles.
Lets you share passwords.
Secure notes.